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We do recommend watching the video when you're able to, so you get a sense of who we are!
We do recommend watching the video when you're able to, so you get a sense of who we are!
Meet Our Team
Elaine Keller-Duemig, CNM
Elaine Keller-Duemig, CNM (she/her)
Elaine joined Central Park Midwifery in 2013. She and the founder, Georgia Rose, worked together for a year prior to Georgia's retirement. Georgia was gracious enough to leave the practice with Elaine, and she and the other CPM midwives have been honored to carry on the CPM legacy.
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Christina McPherson, CNM
Christina McPherson, CNM (she/her)
Christina joined Central Park Midwifery in March 2019. Her journey here began as a little girl with a fascination ignited by photos of her own birth.. She flirted with the idea of medical school and completed pre-med coursework alongside her BA in psychology at Barnard College in 2004. She then worked for four years as a research assistant in neuroendocrinology at The Rockefeller University before midwifery steered her back on course with its client-focused, team-based model that prioritizes the individual’s agency and dignity. She then returned to Columbia University, where she earned a BS in nursing and MS in midwifery.
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Cara Pauls, CNM, DNP
Cara Pauls, CNM, DNP (she/her)
Cara joined Central Park Midwifery in August of 2023. Her long and winding road to midwifery began with a childhood fascination for her own birth story, which her parents dutifully repeated year after year. After majoring in art and design and working in marketing and branding for over a decade, a cesarean birth with her first child and an empowering midwifery-led, doula-supported VBAC with her second flipped a switch, and she knew she wanted to be a midwife. She worked as a doula and lactation counselor for four years while preparing for midwifery school and, meanwhile, fell in love with Central Park Midwifery’s model of care.
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Collaborating Midwife
Neelu Shruti, CNM (she/her)
Neelu Shruti, joined Central Park Midwifery as a collaborating midwife in December 2023. She will be working with CPM as a full scope midwife and attending births side-by-side with the other CPM midwives from approximately May through December 2024.
Neelu is the founder of Love Child Yoga and Midwifery – offering holistic full-spectrum reproductive care in NYC. Neelu holds nursing and midwifery degrees from Yale University and Thomas Jefferson University. She completed her clinical training with Central Park Midwifery, the Sanctum Birth Center in Hyderabad, India, and at HerCare in St. Croix, USVI.
Neelu is passionate about supporting people with holistic and evidence-based care to trust their bodies, and empower them on their reproductive health care journey to make the best decisions for themselves. Her specialties of focus include contraceptive counseling, endometriosis, adolescent care, preconception care, first trimester support, breastfeeding counseling and movement during labor and birth.
Born in Hyderabad, India, Neelu was fortunate to be introduced to yoga while attending Rishi Valley, a boarding school founded by the philosopher J. Krishnamurti. Neelu moved to the US in 2003 to pursue an architecture degree at the University of Texas at Austin and to NYC in 2007 where she worked at several high-profile architecture firms. Teaching yoga on the side, and seeing the impact she was having as a pre/postnatal yoga teacher and doula, in 2015, she quit her day job, founded Love Child – a support space for expecting and new parents – and has never looked back. In addition to teaching pre/postnatal and baby & me yoga, she has worked as a doula and childbirth educator for a decade in NYC.
In 2020, with the desire to increase access to birth centers in NYC, she started her journey to become a midwife. Neelu is currently working to open a birth center in NYC; additionally, she is a grassroots advocate – working with elected officials in NYC, NYS, and local and national birth and midwifery advocacy organizations – to eliminate legislative barriers for community midwifery and birth centers in New York State. She is the founder of the non-profit advocacy organization, New York Birth Policy Project to advance maternal health legislation policies in NYC & NYS. Her writing, highlighting the historical marginalization of community birth and midwives, has been published in The Indypendent and Yale University’s Distilled Periodical.
Neelu spends her time between the west village in NYC and Bandra in Bombay with her husband, Tom. She loves doing Yoga, making art, loves everything about handmade Indian textiles and watching bad (and good!) tv — especially after births/all nighters!
Neelu is the founder of Love Child Yoga and Midwifery – offering holistic full-spectrum reproductive care in NYC. Neelu holds nursing and midwifery degrees from Yale University and Thomas Jefferson University. She completed her clinical training with Central Park Midwifery, the Sanctum Birth Center in Hyderabad, India, and at HerCare in St. Croix, USVI.
Neelu is passionate about supporting people with holistic and evidence-based care to trust their bodies, and empower them on their reproductive health care journey to make the best decisions for themselves. Her specialties of focus include contraceptive counseling, endometriosis, adolescent care, preconception care, first trimester support, breastfeeding counseling and movement during labor and birth.
Born in Hyderabad, India, Neelu was fortunate to be introduced to yoga while attending Rishi Valley, a boarding school founded by the philosopher J. Krishnamurti. Neelu moved to the US in 2003 to pursue an architecture degree at the University of Texas at Austin and to NYC in 2007 where she worked at several high-profile architecture firms. Teaching yoga on the side, and seeing the impact she was having as a pre/postnatal yoga teacher and doula, in 2015, she quit her day job, founded Love Child – a support space for expecting and new parents – and has never looked back. In addition to teaching pre/postnatal and baby & me yoga, she has worked as a doula and childbirth educator for a decade in NYC.
In 2020, with the desire to increase access to birth centers in NYC, she started her journey to become a midwife. Neelu is currently working to open a birth center in NYC; additionally, she is a grassroots advocate – working with elected officials in NYC, NYS, and local and national birth and midwifery advocacy organizations – to eliminate legislative barriers for community midwifery and birth centers in New York State. She is the founder of the non-profit advocacy organization, New York Birth Policy Project to advance maternal health legislation policies in NYC & NYS. Her writing, highlighting the historical marginalization of community birth and midwives, has been published in The Indypendent and Yale University’s Distilled Periodical.
Neelu spends her time between the west village in NYC and Bandra in Bombay with her husband, Tom. She loves doing Yoga, making art, loves everything about handmade Indian textiles and watching bad (and good!) tv — especially after births/all nighters!
